FOREIGN MISSIONS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 26, 25 July 1911, Page 3

FOREIGN MISSIONS

AI)DRBSS AT WHITELEY CHURCH. Thi iv was a verv fair galhering of fricntlH at the White-ley. Me-tbodist Church last niglit, when the Rev. J. G. YVheen, the foreign mission deputation, delivered an address 1 . Rev. W. Caiinel presided, and with him in the pulpit was the Rev. .T. W. Burton, the minister in charge of the circuit. The Rev. J. W. Burton spoke on the financial return of the New Plymouth circuit in regard to the foreign mission* last year. The return last year toHled ' only £11) lis lid, but already there was more in hand for this year, and he felt confident that il.'iO would be raised. He acknowledged the donation of £lO from the Rev. W. Cannell, who, when he forwarded it, had not expected to be able to attend.

The Rev. J. 0. Wheen, in a very interesting address, referred to the great' efforts during the past century to carry I the Gospel to non-Christian nation's, and the remarkaMe d'evelojmient of the mis- ! sionarv spirit. It ,was only a little over a century, in 1792, when the first Protestant missionary society, the Baptist Missionary Society, was started. Then followed in quick succession the London Missionary Society, the Scottish . Missionary Society, and in 1813 the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society. A ! oentury ago there were six missionary I societies, to-day there were over 400; j then tiherc were perhaps a hundred mis- i sionnries, now there were 20.000 of tlieni; ' a century ago there Was .€20,000 a year ' spent on missionary effort, to-day there was £5,000,000. He urged his hearers to take an interest in missionary effort by other organisations as well as their | own church missionary society. The, speaker gave same interesting details of the Australasian mission, which maintained 70 European missionaries, over, 100 native ministers, several hundreds of native teachers and catechists, preaching to and teaching a native constituency . of 140,000 native people. Referring to ; the financing of this great work in the Polynesian Wands, lie .said that up till : lilOS fh"re had been a big annual loss, . amounting in f.-hat year to upwards of j £OOOO. Advice to "cut onr coat ac-1 cording to our <!nth," to close some of the mission stations, to recall some of the men, was not taken. The mission , authorities took the people of the Methodist Church into their confidence, j and now the Foreign Missions, although j I under increased expenditure, was paying ' its way, handling upwards of £45,0001 per annum. What were they doing with the money? The full results of missionary expenditure could not be tabulated. But let them go to the youngest field, | the Western Solomon-, the home of the fiercest islanders in the Pacific. There were thousands of heathen natives there, a primitive people. Missionaries were sent there in 1902. and a few months ago a report from there states that about a year ago at the head station there broke out a revival, much on the lines of the revivals in apostolic times and in the days of Wesley, and for weeks the natives came by day and by night to confess their sins and to be converted to Christ. Tlictp was now a weekly attendance of (SO at his Methodist class meeting—he hadn't found a class meeting like that in New Zealand—for Christian fellowship. He gave instances of the success of the work, and said that any one of the.se was sufficient return for the expenditure on mission work in that far-off island, and that thev should be thankful to God to be allowed to participate in this fine work. Mr. Wheen thanked New Zealand not only for financial assistance but also for the number of its sons and daughters sent to the, mission fields. A lady journalist, Miss Grimshaw. in a series of articles entitled "The Truth about Papua." whilst not at all pleased that as a result of the Christian teaching the savagery and romance of the natives had disappeared, had testified to the great improvement effected. For one thing, she compained that the natives had absolutely refused to sell her party a bit of fruit on a Sunday! Coming to Fiji, he quoted the remark of a writer that whereas in 1835 there was not a single Christian in Fiji, in ISSS there was not a single person who was living the low heathen life that had prevailed at the earlier date. But there was still much to he done there before the natives reached the same level as the European Christians., They were but children yet, but the missionaries were endeavoring to inculcate a robust, manly spirit amongst them. More attention must be given to the industrial education of the Fijian, as the Rev. Burton had realised from his experience there. There were 40,000 Indians in Fiji, increasing by 2000 annually, and if they wanted to keep Fiji for Jesus Christ they must set to work more energetically to Christianise those Indians. But the church had not responded as she should have done to the appeals of the Rev. Burton and other missionaries, there. Why not civilise them first? asked someone. Robert Moffatt had said that civilisation would drive out the tiger from the native, but unless it was accompanied 'by Christianising influence they would breed the fox. And they preferred the tiger to deal with. Mr. Wheen told his audience some instances of Mr. Burton's influence amongst those Tndians, and the affection which they felt for him. Mr. Wheen, after referring to the fact that there were a thousand million* of non-Chris-tian people and only five hundred million Christian people in the world, said it was over 1800 years since Jesus Christ | came to earth, suffered, and died; 1800 years had gone since He had said "Go ye into all tlhe world, and preach the Gospel." What must Jesus feel when ITe j saw those thousand millions of nonChristian people, and when lie saw the indifference of some of the churches towards the foreign mission work. He concluded in an impassioned appeal, and the recitation of some beautiful lines, "They wa.it." Missionary -hymns were sung, and the chairman ,-ind Rev. Burton each said a few words of thanks to the Rev. Mr. Wheen, after which the Rev. J. Lidilell closed the meeting with the Benediction.